REES Department Seminar: Dr. Debra Davidson, University of Alberta – Friday, April 4, 2025

Title: The Role of Cynicism in Social Responses to the Climate Emergency

Speaker: Dr. Debra Davidson, Professor, University of Alberta

Date: Friday, April 4, 2025

Time: 3:30pm-5:00pm

Location: GSB 550

Abstract: 

Cynicism poses a potentially formidable barrier to personal and collective investments in addressing the climate emergency that has yet to receive substantive research attention. In this article, the results of a qualitative study involving interviews with 74 participants in Canada and the United States regarding personal perspectives on climate change are presented. Several different forms of cynicism were expressed across the sample, including media cynicism, government cynicism, policy cynicism, political economy cynicism, human nature cynicism, and science cynicism. Using co-occurrence analysis, cynicism was found to be strongly associated with confidence in societal response to the climate emergency, and personal feelings of powerlessness. Although not the most prevalent cynicism code, political economy cynicism had the strongest level of co-occurrence with low response confidence and powerlessness. The implications for research and praxis are discussed.

Bio: 
Dr. Debra Davidson is Professor of Environmental Sociology in the Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology at the University of Alberta. Debra began her career at the University of Alberta as Assistant Professor in 1999. Since that time, her teaching and research has been focused on the social impacts of and responses to climate change, with particular attention to energy-society relations. Recent research focused on the role of emotions in social responses to climate change is featured in her latest book, Feeling Climate Change: How Emotions Govern Our Responses to the Climate Emergency (Routledge, 2024). Her work is also featured in several journals, including Science, Nature, Global Environmental Change, and British Journal of Sociology. She was Lead Author in Working Group II on the 5^th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, and is currently a member of the United Nations Environment Program’s Expert Foresight Panel.